


five times numbers made more sense to momoi than people

by desdemona (LydiaOfNarnia)



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: A healthy dose of GOM angst, Friendship, Gen, Mathematics, Middle School Mid-Life Crises, and then friendship fluff because it is necessary and needed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-05
Updated: 2016-05-05
Packaged: 2018-06-06 15:00:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6758815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LydiaOfNarnia/pseuds/desdemona
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Momoi likes to think that she understands her friends. She doesn't enjoy being wrong.</p><p><i>Probability of any of us being happy together again:</i> 72.6%</p><p>Written for <a href="http://momoisatsukiweek.tumblr.com/">Momoi Satsuki Week 2016!</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	five times numbers made more sense to momoi than people

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Пять раз, когда цифры выручали Момои](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13504962) by [WTF_Spokon_2018](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WTF_Spokon_2018/pseuds/WTF_Spokon_2018)



> because if anyone can beat the 'five times' trope to death, it's me.

1.

It takes Satsuki less than twenty seconds to decide that whatever is going on in front of her is definitely something she _could_ understand, if she felt like bothering -- but that would take more brain power than it’s probably worth, bring on a migraine to last the rest of the day, and serve as yet another devastating blow to her stubbornly-held theory that Aomine Daiki Is Capable Of Rational Thought.

“We -- we --” Even Aomine himself seems to be at a loss as to why he and Kise are both covered head-to-toe in a vibrant kaleidoscopic mess of paint, glitter, and what looks suspiciously like pages torn from Midorima’s math notes.

“We can totally explain, Momocchi!” Kise cries, but he sounds even more panicked than Aomine, so Satsuki honestly finds herself doubting that.

Any minute now, she predicts, a horde of angry art students (plus Midorima) are going to come racing down the hallway, hellbent on tearing two of the most promising members of the Teikou basketball team first string to shreds. In approximately… forty seconds, if Momoi had to guess, based on their current distance from the art room, and the sheer sprinting power of a dozen livid artists scorned. Adding in Midorima’s own speed, and if he happened to be frequenting either the library or his classroom (his usual haunts) she wouldn’t be surprised if he managed to make it here in half that amount of time.

After calculating all this in her head, it dawns on her that Aomine is still talking. “-- and so we thought Nijimura wouldn’t mind if we got him back, since this guy’s always such a creep anyway and talking bad about someone like Midorima is one thing, but if it’s the captain --”

As if calling his name summons him from the depths of hell, Midorima appears. More accurately, Midorima leaps right through the open window just behind Aomine (Satsuki had failed to calculate the likelihood of him being outside when the great math note theft was uncovered) and seizes the blue haired boy in a chokehold before he even knows what’s hit him.

Kise lets out a shriek, stumbling over his own two feet like a panicked newborn deer. He leaves a trail of torn math notes and glitter in his wake as he takes off down the other end of the hallway -- only to run directly into the art club, who appear against a backdrop of fire and lightning, eyes blazing and paintbrushes drawn for the kill. Kise screams for mercy, but mercy abandoned him long ago.

_The probability of Kise and Aomine being dead by the end of the hour: 67.8%_  
_The probability of Midorima ever restoring his math notes to their former impeccability: 11.2%_  
_The probability of Akashi having to pay for new supplies for the art club to replace the ones that the team’s resident idiots got into: 94.3%_

Satsuki decides she doesn’t want to know.

2.

She finds Tetsu in the Teikou gymnasium the night before graduation, just as she’d known she would. Neither of them are supposed to be here right now, and they both know it; unsurprisingly, neither of them care. Seeing him just where she’d expected only confirms what she already knows. The boy can take himself out of basketball, but basketball will never leave the boy. She knows that Tetsu will play next year; this is just another certainty in her mind.

“Tetsu-kun,” she says in a soft voice. For once, the shadow is startled; he drops the ball, the shot that would not have made it through the hoop anyway slipping from his hands and bouncing against the floor. The sound is hollow, and it echoes her own heartbeat as she takes a step closer. She half expects Kuroko to move backwards; with the way he’s been doggedly avoiding them all since that last game, she wouldn’t be surprised if he did. But Tetsu stands his ground, because Tetsu is the strongest person she knows.

He nods his head, a shy greeting. It stings her heart, and she feels her eyes begin to itch. “Momoi-san.”

“I -- you --”

She does not have the words. Neither does he. He regards her for another moment before turning again, leaning down and picking the ball up from the ground. He fires haphazardly at the hoop; the shot bounces off the side of the backboard and clatters to the ground again.

 _Tetsu-kun shot without calculating first,_ she observes; this alone tells her more than his own implacable facade, the back turned towards her, ever could. _He’s just as nervous as I am._

“Do you know where you’re going for high school?”

The question surprises them both; Momoi barely even realizes it came from her lips until Kuroko’s shoulders slump slightly and he turns to face her once more. His eyes, that same beautiful icy blue that she’d always admired, lock with hers; suddenly she’s not sure if he’d judging her or pitying her.

_Probability Tetsu-kun judges me: 66.7%_  
_Probability Tetsu-kun pities me: 79.5%_

Not very good odds, then. She crinkles her delicate nose, and something inside her cringes as he takes a step forward.

“I don’t know where I’ll be going,” he replies at last. In the otherwise silence of the gym, his calm voice seems to echo around her. “Momoi-san -- do you?”

She bites her lip. He knows, just as well as she, what she wants to do -- she does not want to leave him, Tetsuya, her first love. The very thought of being separated from him twists her heart, makes her feel sad and sick and ever so lonely. There is no reason for her to tell him that she would follow him anywhere, for he already knows that as certainly as she does.

In that case, he also knows -- with as little question in his mind as there is in her own -- that she won’t follow him. If she is to follow anyone, it will be Aomine -- the danger, the firecracker, the game of Russian roulette that could go off at any moment. He is the one who needs looking after. Wherever he goes, Satsuki will follow, because that is the way it has always been. She does not need to say this either, because they both know it.

She wishes she could touch him, but she knows her affection is not welcome right now. Instead, she simply sighs and say the only honest thing she can say.

“I don’t know.”

_Probability of us all reuniting (on warm terms) after Teikou: 04.6%_

3.

He brushes her off with a snarl, a muttered curse, and a slamming door as he stomps out of the gym. The rest of the team is silent behind her for a long moment; then, finally, Imayoshi’s overly-chipper tone splits the fugue that had fallen over the Touou players. “Back to work, everyone!”

Still staring at the place where he was not even a minute -- not even thirty seconds ago -- she runs a calculation over in her head.

_The probability of Aomine-kun ever caring again: 100%_

It’s not real math. She knows it isn’t, and she knows she’s better than that. So, Satsuki reviews her statistics. She spends hours bent over her notebooks, scribbling, jotting things down and scratching things out, reanalyzing old datas and updating new ones. She consults the spreadboards, long since tucked away in her closet, that she made at the end of middle school to chart the Generation of Miracles’ individual progressions.

Finally, she gets her answer. It is as close to mathematically sound as she can get it.

_The probability of Aomine-kun ever caring again: 34.6%_

She stares down at the page in her notebook for a long moment. She doesn’t move; the numbers written down in careful scrawl across the page burn themselves against her eyelids, a statistic she knows she will see even in her dreams. She had done the best she could do.

Very carefully, she tears out the page of her notebook, crumples it up, and throws it in her trash bin. Aomine, she reminds herself, has never cared much about math.

4.

“And so then he drove the plane down -- like, he just dove straight down towards the ground Satsuki, it was amazing -- and over the plane’s loudspeaker you hear this dude just start yelling ‘If I go down, you’re going with me, fuckers!’ And then he just _slams_ the plane into the ground, Satsuki! I swear it was the coolest thing I’ve ever seen in a movie --”

Satsuki heaves a long sigh, replacing a pastel green skirt back on the rack with a glance at the tag. It is a size too large for her, and wouldn’t look good with her legs anyhow; she needs something that is both more form-fitting and less…

She glances back at the skirt, and her nose crinkles. _Ugly_. Yes, ugly is a very good word.

“And then he -- oi, Satsuki, are you listening to me?”

“Not really, Dai-chan,” she chirps, examining a pretty blouse for a few seconds before letting it fall out of her hands again. Let it never be said that she had no style; she was nothing if not a picky shopper. Aomine knows this better than anyone -- it’s been him, after all, who has been forced to follow her around all day as she weaves through the mall, slowly accumulating a mountain of shopping bags which now all rest in Aomine’s arms.

“Come on, Satsuki! American action movies are the best!”

“Go see one with Kagami, then.”

“He already saw this one twice. Come on, you know you love the movies! We’ve been in this store for two hours, dammit, why can’t we have some fun? Satsuki? Hey -- oi, come back!”

_The probability of Dai-chan realizing I have no interest in American action films: 78.3%_  
_The probability of him shutting up about American action films: 09.4%_  
_The probability of me going to see the movie with him anyway: 98.7%_

An hour later finds Satsuki and Aomine, side by side in the movie theatre, bowl of popcorn split between them and both their laps filled with as much candy as they could both conceivably carry from the concession stand. On the screen, a large explosion goes off. Aomine mutters a curse under his breath; Satsuki smiles.

 

5.

Aomine shoves him, and Kise tosses his head back and laughs -- that sunshine laugh, the one that’s all teeth and dangerously undiluted happiness, giggles that bubble like champagne in a crystal glass. Satsuki leans forward, soaking up the rays of that beaming grin, until Kise bops her on the nose.

“Momocchi, don’t close your eyes! Why don’t you want to look at my beautiful face?”

She sticks out her tongue at him as Aomine shoves him again, this time taking a step over the line by ruffling the model’s golden hair. Kise lets out a howl and lunges, bent on getting revenge for Aomine’s abuse of his golden locks. By this point, Satsuki wisely vacates the couch for safer pastures.

She finds them curled up on the loveseat next to Kuroko. Unlike anyone else, he actually seems focused on watching the movie playing on Kagami’s large television screen. He doesn’t protest when Satsuki leans her head against his shoulder, and the rose haired girl lets out a sigh of content. Tetsu-kun is warm, as much of a comforting presence as he’s always been, She nuzzles her face into his arm and he absently reaches over to stroke her hair.

Kise lets out a yelp as he topples off of the couch -- landing right on top of Murasakibara, who’d made his place on the floor beside the couch and was not content to move except in the event of an actual calamity. Kise, apparently, is not calamity enough. With a grunt, the purple giant swiftly boots the blond off of him and sends him a warning glare fit to shatter an iceberg. “If Kise-chin crushes my snacks, Kise-chin gets crushed.”

No one seems appropriately alarmed by this statement -- mostly because it’s Kise. Murasakibara’s eyes narrow at the underwhelming response.

“And Kaga-chin has to buy me new snacks.”

“Oi, Kise!” Kagami suddenly calls from the kitchen, sounding more frazzled than anything else. Satsuki feels a flash of sympathy for the poor boy, having to put up with a Generation of Miracles invasion in his apartment. Kagami’s really a nice boy; he doesn’t deserve a lot of what his friends put him through. “Don’t break his snacks, dammit!”

“I think I broke a bone!” Kise shoots back, sitting up and looking more frazzled than anything else. Any pretense of concern (not that anyone had been bothering) promptly fades away when it becomes clear that he's still breathing.

“Will you all be quiet?” Midorima calls over his shoulder, his tone even tenser than usual. “It’s impossible to focus with all the racket you’re making!”

“What does it matter, Midorima?” Akashi raises an eyebrow from the other side of the shogi board, a smirk pulling at the corners of his lips. “You know there’s no way you can beat me.”

Midorima turns back to the board, eyes narrowing at his friend and rival. Akashi reflects the gesture with his own ruby orbs, clearly revelling in his opponent’s frustration. _(“Even when he’s the normal him,”_ Aomine had remarked not too long ago, voice lowered in the interest of self-preservation, _“he’s still scary as hell.”_ )

Apparently bored with the sudden lack of Kise to harrass, Aomine turns his attention to a new target. “Oi, Kagami! Is dinner almost ready?”

“Yeah, Kagamicchi!” calls Kise, bouncing up from his spot on the floor to try and peer into the kitchen. “We’re all hungry out here.”

Kagami peeks out the door, and there’s murder in his eyes. Satsuki buries her face in Tetsu’s shoulder, because she really doesn’t want to be laughing at her friend’s pain, but she just can’t help it.

_Probability of us all being happy like this forever: 0.001%_  
_Probability of the friendships in this room remaining just as strong twenty years from now: 89.7%_  
_Probability of these memories lasting a lifetime: …._

Satsuki’s eyes wander around the room, coming to rest on each of her friends in turn. It was a long time coming, this peace, this amnesty; but now, surrounded by all the people she cares about and whom she knows care about her, she can’t remember the last time she felt so warm.

_100%_


End file.
